Thursday, October 8, 2009

Beef and Bacon and Sausage oh my...

Big Macs, chili cheese fries, steak burritos, have become basic staples of an Americans diet diets. Obviously, not everyone eats this way in fact most don’t, but those that do are increasing their ecological footprint as well as their waistline with every bite.

Dipping your T-bone steak into A1 may be inching us one step closer to global warming. Raising animals for food is a cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and global warming.

While some people would rather jump in front of a bus than give up meat for even a meal, for others, like me, the transition to this more sustainable lifestyle is hardly noticeable. Bottom line: if you love meat don’t become a vegetarian, my blog sure won’t change your mind, but if you already are or seriously considering it, or want to become a semitarian [def.(n.) someone who eats less meat than they did before] here are some additional points to the vegetarian argument.

If global warming doesn’t do much for you, this will (or at least it gets me). There is good news and bad news: Good news we have enough food to feed the entire planet, the bad news is we are not using our resources efficiently enough to feed everyone. How is this happening? When I heard this is couldn’t figure out why as a global society we couldn’t figure this one out. We have enough food in the world to feed everyone but billions still go hungry every single day.

According to Rajul Pandya-Lorch, International Food Policy Research Institute: “More than 130 million children who are under the age of five will still remain malnourished by 2020.”

While my own vegetarianism can not reverse this daunting statistic it sure can't hurt.